The Supreme Court on Tuesday directed the directorate of personnel and training to file an affidavit within two weeks apprising it of the steps taken to fill vacancies in the Central Information Commission (CIC).

The states were also asked to submit affidavits on whether they have complied with multiple directives telling them to make recruitments to state information commissions (SIC). The court expressed anguish over the failure of governments to fill up vacancies in information commissions, which it said defeated the very objective of the Right to Information Act.

“These posts need to be filled at the earliest, otherwise what is the use of having the institutions if we don’t have people working there?” the court asked.

It expressed concern over attempts by governments to appoint only bureaucrats as chief information commissioners and information commissioners.

“We can take judicial notice of the fact that entire commissions are loaded with only one category of people. Why should only bureaucrats be appointed and why not people from different walks of life be appointed? We don’t want to say more but this needs to be looked into,” a bench of Justices Surya Kant and Kotiswar Singh told the lawyers appearing for the Centre and
various states.

The bench was dealing with a PIL filed by RTI activist Anjali Bhardwaj and others challenging the large number of vacancies in the CIC and SICs and the “reluctance” of successive governments to comply with the directives of the top court to fill the posts.

Advocate Prashant Bhushan, appearing for the petitioners, complained that despite directions, both the Centre and the states have been lax in complying with
the orders.

The court pointed out that 8 of the 11 posts at the CIC are vacant, including that of the chief information
commissioner.

It directed the DoPT secretary to file an affidavit “detailing the timelines within which the process will be completed and timeline within which such appointments shall be notified…. Let the requisite affidavit be filed within two weeks.” The order was issued to additional solicitor-general Brijender Chahar, appearing for the Centre.

The court issued the following directives to the state:

• List of applicants be notified within a week
• Search committees for shortlisting candidates be constituted within a week of the notification of applicants
• Timelines for completion of interviews be notified. This shall not be more than six weeks from the date of the composition of thesearch committee
• Upon receipt of the recommendations of the search committee, the authorities concerned shall take steps to make the appointments within two weeks.